Discriminative General Senses, Crude Touch, and Proprioception

Touch and the discriminative general senses (DGSs) encompass a number of sensory modalities. Touch by itself refers to crude (also called light) and movement sensation, which yields little information apart from the fact of contact with an object. The DGSs also include the following: (1) “pressure touch,” which enables an awareness of shape, size, and texture; (2) stereognosis, appreciation of an object’s three dimensionality; (3) perception of an object’s weight; (4) vibratory sense (as tested with a tuning fork); (5) position sense (awareness of body parts, especially joints); and (6) awareness of body and limb movement, including direction. The last two are often grouped as kinesthetic sense.

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